The short version
- The Fairmont Southampton is Bermuda's most emblematic address: a large property set high above the south shore, with its private pink sand beach and its golf course.
- The hotel has been closed since 2020 for a complete redevelopment, one of the largest ever undertaken on the island. Its rooms have not reopened yet.
- Part of the property is already running: the beach club, the Turtle Hill golf course and three restaurants welcome visitors.
- We are taking names for the reopening. No firm date has been announced, and we will not give you one we cannot stand behind.
Where the Fairmont Southampton stands
Let us start with the truth, because it will save you time.
The hotel closed in 2020 and has been a construction site since. The renovation touches nearly everything: the rooms, the public spaces, the restaurants, the infrastructure. It is one of the largest hotel projects in Bermuda's history, and the island's government attached its name to it, such is the property's weight in the local economy.
The timeline has slipped more than once. A phased reopening has been described, and full operations are not expected for a good while yet. No firm date holds today, and an advisor who promised you one would be telling you a story.
Here is what we can do instead. We follow the file closely, we put your name on our call-back list, and you hear from us the moment booking dates are confirmed. The best rooms at this address will go quickly, and being on the list beats learning the news six weeks later.
What is open on the property right now
The construction concerns the hotel, not the whole property. Several facilities already receive visitors, which surprises a lot of people.
The new beach club was built on the south shore and is in service. It gathers two restaurants, a pavilion, bars and cabanas, all set directly on the sand. The level of finish signals what the hotel will be when it reopens.
The Waterlot Inn, the house steakhouse in a 17th-century building at the water's edge, still receives guests. The Boundary Sports Bar and Grille and The Grill at the golf course are open as well.
Turtle Hill Golf Club, finally, operates normally. If you are staying elsewhere on the island, you can enjoy a good part of what the property offers without sleeping there.
What the hotel will be when it reopens
The property holds roughly 600 rooms, by far the largest count in Bermuda, and the renovation takes in all of them. The exact number and the category mix will be confirmed when bookings open.
The ballroom seats a thousand, a capacity unique on the island: that is what makes this address the centre of gravity for conferences, large weddings and group travel in Bermuda. Group and event bookings are already being taken for dates after the reopening.
The property looks down on the south shore from height, with views over the ocean on one side and the Great Sound on the other. The private beach, the beach club, the golf course, the pools and the spa make up the whole.
The pink sand beach, and why it is pink
The Fairmont Southampton faces the south shore, home to the wide pink sand beaches that made Bermuda's reputation. Here is the explanation, and it beats the legend.
A microscopic organism called the red foraminifera, Homotrema rubrum, lives under the reef rocks and builds a bright red skeleton. When it dies, the fragments mix into the white limestone sand and tint it. Parrotfish speed the process along: scraping algae off the reef, they grind those skeletons and scatter the powder.
Let us be straight about it: the tint is delicate, nothing like candy pink. It shows best in the low light of morning and evening, and on wet sand at the water's edge. The vividly pink photographs in circulation are edited. Once that expectation is set, Bermuda's south shore remains one of the finest coastlines you will see, and it walks for kilometres.
Turtle Hill golf
Turtle Hill Golf Club is an 18-hole par-3 course laid out across the hillside with ocean views from nearly every tee. It plays in half a day and suits the seasoned golfer and the beginner alike.
The course operates despite the hotel works. For a golf trip to Bermuda it combines easily with the island's other courses, and your advisor can build the sequence of tee times.
Getting to Bermuda from Canada
A non-stop flight links Montreal to Bermuda, but the window has tightened and departures number a handful a week, seasonally. Outside those departures you connect, usually through Toronto or the US east coast.
This is exactly the kind of file where an advisor saves you time and money. Combinations shift from one season to the next, and a poorly chosen connection easily adds half a day to the journey. Call 1 866 628-6241 before you lock in your dates.
L.F. Wade International Airport sits at the east end of the island and Southampton at the west: allow about 45 minutes by road. The transfer is booked in advance.
When to go, and what the sea is really like
Here is the point that surprises Canadians most: Bermuda is not a winter sun destination.
The archipelago lies in the North Atlantic, roughly a thousand kilometres off the coast of North Carolina. The Gulf Stream softens the climate without making it tropical. From November through March, highs sit around 20 to 22 degrees and the sea drops to 19 or 20. That is pleasant for walking, for golf and for sightseeing, far less so for spending the day in the water.
Swimming becomes comfortable from June through October, and the sea peaks near 27 degrees in August. Hurricane season runs June to November with the peak from August to October. At this latitude storms lose intensity, but they still bring wind and rain, and cancellation coverage earns its place during that stretch.
April and May are the driest months of the year. For a trip built around golf, the beach and walking without heavy heat, that is the finest window Bermuda offers.
Getting around without a car
Visitors cannot rent cars in Bermuda. It is a long-standing government rule, adopted to protect the character of the island and its narrow roads, and it admits no exceptions.
What remains: public buses, pink on the main routes and blue on local lines, ferries linking Hamilton, the Dockyard and St. George's, metered taxis at regulated rates, 50cc scooters that require no motorcycle licence, electric minicars restricted to drivers 25 and over, and bicycles. Multi-day passes cover buses and ferries together.
The island covers about 54 square kilometres and nothing is more than about ninety minutes away by bus. Southampton is well served, on the main south shore road, and a ferry links the area to Hamilton in about twenty minutes.
What is there to do around Southampton?
Southampton is the south shore parish, home to the beaches you see in every photograph of Bermuda. You are in the right place to walk.
Horseshoe Bay and South Shore Park
Horseshoe Bay is the island's best-known beach, a crescent of pink sand between rocks carved by the sea. It is minutes away. The South Shore Park coastal path links it to Warwick Long Bay and on to Elbow Beach: several kilometres of coves one after another, often deserted once you leave the car park behind.
Gibbs Hill Lighthouse
Gibbs Hill Lighthouse, close by, is one of the oldest cast-iron lighthouses in the world, in service since 1846. You climb its 185 steps and see the whole island from the gallery. Go late in the afternoon.
Church Bay for snorkelling
Church Bay, in the same parish, ranks among the island's best shore snorkelling: the reef sits close in and the life on it is dense. The small cove is earned by a staircase, which keeps the crowds away.
While you wait for the reopening
If your travel dates fall before the rooms open, the island has other addresses and we will gladly place you in one.
Coco Reef sits on the same south shore with its own pink sand beach. The St. Regis Bermuda Resort, in the east, is the island's newest property. The Grotto Bay Beach Resort offers an optional all-inclusive plan. And nothing stops you dining at the Waterlot Inn or playing Turtle Hill while you stay elsewhere.
Booking with an advisor
For this address, a call beats an online search. We will tell you where the file actually stands at the moment you call, add your name to the call-back list, and put forward an alternative if your dates fall before the opening.
For a wedding, a conference or group travel after the reopening, bookings are already being taken and handled case by case.
For the destination as a whole, see our page on travel to Bermuda and our selection of places to stay in Bermuda.
A Voyages AquaTerra advisor will take your call at 1 866 628-6241.
